Awards

The Edelstein Prize

The Edelstein Prize is awarded to the author of an outstanding scholarly book in the history of technology published during the preceding three years. Established as the Dexter Prize in 1968 through the generosity of the late Sidney Edelstein—founder of the Dexter Chemical Corporation, noted expert on the history of dyes and dye processes, and 1988 recipient of SHOT's Leonardo da Vinci Medal—the Edelstein Prize is donated by Ruth Edelstein Barish and her family in memory of Sidney Edelstein and his commitment to excellence in scholarship in the history of technology.

The 2006 Edelstein Prize was awarded to Christine Cogdell for Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). The citation read:

Christine Cogdell's interests in evolutionary theory, design, and material culture converge in Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s, a provocative study of an ideology and its influence on people, products, and social policy. Focused on the anxious interwar years, Cogdell elicits evidence from eugenicists, architects, designers, educators, and ministers. Her story reveals the extent to which prominent elites fused eugenic ideals, derived from evolutionary theory, with streamline design and promoted the hybrid concept beyond their class into the broader society. Their goals, both expressed and implied, were to bolster their class status and eliminate or assimilate minorities. Her actors sought individual, product, and ultimately cultural uniformity, possibilities rendered probable by elite reformers who imagined an imminent utopia occupied by efficient, hygienic, streamlined people and products. Cogdell presents a layered analysis of a potent ideology and a design trend that resonated throughout twentieth-century society and reverberates today.

Among the evolutionary theories that eugenicists promoted and designers adopted, Social Darwinism and Lamarckianism were the most influential, Cogdell explains. Social Darwinism, popularized by Herbert Spencer, applied Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest to human populations. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck contended that Darwinian adaptations occurred as a consequence of the environment. For designers, streamlined environments and mass-produced products were the vectors of change. Echoing eugenic rhetoric, they rounded corners, emphasized horizontality, and limited ornamentation to eliminate impediments to progress.

Cogdell definitively proves that eugenics theory and streamlined design together permeated the mainstream. Using the work of Norman Bel Geddes and his contemporaries, she incisively illustrates how designers normalized eugenic ideals through magazines, world's fairs, and museums, and in the market. Tapping multivalent theories of hygiene, designers introduced streamlined appliances like the vacuum cleaner to eliminate dust and redesigned the toilet to eliminate con-stipation. Cogdell explains that cost was but one factor that limited the purchase of the products with their intended genetic benefit to wealthy elites. During the period, many Americans had no elec-tricity and fewer had indoor plumbing.

The analysis culminates in Cogdell's critique of the "ideal type." She reveals how eugenicists and designers conflated the concepts "typical" and "ideal" into a fiction that they promoted as reality, but one to which neither humans nor products could conform. Using contemporary sculptures exhibited at fairs and museums, Cogdell demonstrates how eugenicists promoted an idealized human physique, then parsed it as "typical," but also as a goal that viewers should strive to attain. Likewise justifying disjunction, designers explained that annual product-model change was evidence that while they created perfect products, perfection itself was an ongoing process.

Cogdell concludes with a sobering analysis of the persistence of eugenics and streamlined design, particularly as they relate to reproductive technologies. She explains that American consumers retain faith in technocratic interventions that promise human perfection despite the still-questionable assumptions that underlie the standard. The Society for the History of Technology is pleased to award the Edelstein Prize for 2006 to Christine Cogdell for her outstanding study.

The Sally Hacker Prize

The Sally Hacker Prize was established in 1999 to recognize the best popular book written in the history of technology during the three years preceding the award. The prize recognizes books in the history of technology that are directed to a broad audience of readers, including students and the interested public. The winner of the 2006 Sally Hacker Prize was Brian Hayes for his book Infrastructure: A...